Tuesday, October 04, 2011

The 9th considers whether defense counsel's failure in a 1983 California capital trial to object to a prosecutor's allegedly group bias-based preemptory strikes was IAC. The 9th held it was not IAC. The prosecutor struck six Hispanic venirepersons. Two Hispanics did sit as jurors, with one as an alternate. The defendant had a high bar to prove ineffectiveness, and he did not clear it. The reasons for striking the prospective jurors seemed strategic and tactical, and the record supported reasons to want them removed. Tasima dissents, arguing that a prosecutor's striking of 75% of Hispanic jurors should have rang an alarm. The reasons for such strikes seem flimsy.